After two days of qualifying races, a field of 69 kiters has been narrowed down to two fleets for the Finals: 35 top contenders will go on to race in the Gold Fleet and 34 will race in the Silver fleet. Thus far, Kite Foil Gold Cup hosted by St. Francis Yacht Club (StFYC) has seen increasingly challenging conditions with breeze building to the mid-20s on Friday. Race committee got in ten races each day, which allowed competitors to discard their two lowest finishes before seeding the fleet for Finals.

"Those discards are pretty crucial, because today's conditions were challenging for everyone," says St. Francis Yacht Club Race Coordinator Graham Biehl. "Part of today was simply surviving through the tough racing. Lots of kiters got DNFs or had equipment breakages, so those discards will come in handy."

Racing was tight through qualifiers, and the leaderboard reflects it. The top kiters posted incredibly consistent results. Nico Parlier, currently in first, scored a bullet in every race. Axel Mazella scored all seconds and remains in fifth place. Locals Johnny Heineken and Joey Pasquali are in third and fifth respectively. (See all results HERE)

"This is a killer course at a killer venue," says Pasquali. "Compared to the other stops in the Kite Foil Gold Tour, this one is clearly the biggest. And it seems that the fleet just keeps getting faster."

Kiting, and kite foiling in particular, is still a relatively new branch of sailing, and it's the competitors who are pushing the technology and changing the game. "Equipment plays a huge role in how fast you can go out there," explains Pasquali. "There are no limitations to our gear and, as a fleet, we agree that faster is always better, so we're in no hurry to put down restrictions." Pasquali, for instance, races on a relatively small F1 foiling board that creates very little drag. "I've been kiting for 15 years, and one of the coolest things is to see how the technology is aggressively pushing this fleet forward. We are trying to push the equipment into another dimension."

Going into Finals, Race Director Lynn Lynch of StFYC says she plans to run four races a day on a similar course. Lynch is coordinating a fleet of five to six inflatables as well as a small army of 35-40 race committee volunteers both on and off the water. In order to get in as many races as possible, she and her team must be incredibly precise. Following races on Friday, race committee reported that each race started within 30 seconds of its predetermined time; racing was executed with such precision that the day ended four minutes ahead of schedule. "It definitely adds another dimension to try and get this many kiters and this many races into two days of qualifiers," explains Lynch. "We're going to continue that efficiency over the next two days."

If you are around Crissy Field this weekend, make it a point to go and watch some of this world-class racing. As Lynch says, "It's amazing to watch this many athletes on such highly evolved technology racing at these top speed on the Bay."

To the untrained eye, Thursday afternoon on Crissy Field looked like a mess. There were kites and lines and boards strewn about the beach, apparently haphazardly. There were kiters running through the sand, panting and shouting lines such as "I was crushin' it until I got hit by that friggin' devil puff!" The breeze was kicking up sand everywhere and it seemed as though no two accents were the same: French, South African, German and "Surfer Bro" accents toppled over one another.

"Yellow fleet, go sailing!" Race organizers shouted out from the regatta tents, and half the fleet mobilized. Race Committee volunteers in bright yellow jackets sprung to action, helping the kiters launch their kites. Carefully and swiftly, the athletes hooked into their harnesses, checked that their lines weren't tangled and then let their kites soar upwards, catching enough breeze to get them momentarily airborne so they could trot, weightless, to their boards. Then, they were in the the water, feet into straps, and woosh—they foiled away. Just seconds after launching, they were foiling two feet above the San Francisco Bay.

"Today has really been about working out the kinks and getting used to the venue" says St. Francis Yacht Club Race Coordinator Graham Biehl. "Most of these kiters have a kit that includes a few different kites, boards and even foils, and they're figuring out what works best in these conditions. It's a matter of finding a balance between speed and power." For the most part, competitors were opting for their smallest kites, as conditions were fairly tough: breeze consistently above 15 knots and a building ebb tide that brought a fair amount of chop.

At the end of five hard-fought races between the 69 competitors, the French were in the lead. Maxime Nocher and Nico Parlier were tied for first with 4 points, Axel Mazella and Johnny Heineken were tied for second with 8 points and Joey Pasquali was in third with 11 points. Erika Heineken is the current top-ranked female and Nicolai Sponholtz is in the lead for the US Youth Nationals.

Racing starts today again at 1:00pm. See Day One results HERE and fleet assignments HERE.